Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj

Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj (1954-15 April 1982) was a radical Islamist theorist from Egypt. He led the Cairo group of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and he would be executed in 1982 for his role in the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Faraj was best-known for his theories on jihad, stating that the primary target for jihadists should be local regimes (the "near enemy") before attacking the "far enemy" (Israel and non-Muslim nations).

Biography
Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj was born in 1954 in Beheira, Egypt to a Sunni Muslim family, and he worked as an administrator at Cairo University with a degree in electrical engineering. In 1979, he began to develop the Egyptian Islamic Jihad revolutionary group in Cairo, and he became the leader of a loose group of five revolutionary cells. In late September 1981, he planned the assassination of President Anwar Sadat with Ayman al-Zawahiri and other jihadists, and Sadat was assassinated on 6 October 1981. Faraj was quickly arrested for his role in the assassination, and he was executed on 15 April 1982 along with assassin Khaled Islambouli and three accomplices.